As President Lincoln lay dying, Vice President Johnson visited the room where he lay, and when Mrs. Lincoln saw him, it was reported, she screamed and demanded he be removed. So he went back to his room at Kirkwood house. According to newspaper reports, the Vice President had gotten stinking drunk, and when aides to the now-dead president came to fetch the Vice-President they were unable to wake him for several minutes. When he was finally awake, the accounts read, "he had puffy eyes and his hair was caked with mud from the street," and that a barber and doctor were summoned to clean him up for the ten-o'clock ceremony, which all accounts agree went smoothly.

After the ceremony, now President Johnson gave an impromptu inaugural address, which began with him begging the cabinet to remain with him and then attacking the Confederacy with such venom, that one witness remarked "It would have been better had he been struck dumb."